"You got no call to..." Rhett whined.
"No offence, Bob," Forrest cut in. "But you smell bad."
Rhett shrugged. "Nobody told me they didn't have a john on the train."
"You disgust me," Forrest snarled.
"I got a weak bladder," Rhett countered.
"It matches your damn head," Forrest snapped.
"Anyone here got a knife?" Hedges called, raising his voice to be heard above the clatter of the wheels and creaking of the car.
"Yeah," a voice called back, heavy with sarcasm. "The rebs let me keep it. I got a carbine and a couple of pistols as well. What you want to do, Captain? Cut your throat or blow your brains out."
The car was suddenly filled with bitter laughter. Forrest grinned at Hedges. "Seems nobody gives a damn for those bars anymore," he said. The cramped conditions made Hedges' movements slow as he reached a hand behind his neck and drew the razor. The sight of the blade, shining in the shaft of sunlight from the cracked door, wiped the cold humor from the sergeant's face.
Hedges' lips curled back in a grin of his own. "Not now, Forrest," he hissed. "I told you. There has to be a reason. Shove up."
He ground his hip against that of Forrest and a series of groans travelled around the car as one man’s need to change position involved every prisoner in shifting. When the movement ceased, Hedges was squatting sideways on the crack in the door.
"You gonna cut your way out?" Forrest asked sardonically.
Hedges ignored him and took off his cap, wrapping it around the blade of the razor. Then he turned the instrument upside-down and pressed the handle between the door and the frame. He rested it against the underside of the iron bar that acted as a catch. He knew that if there was a padlock on the bar, he was beaten, but he hadn't heard any scrape of a key after the door was slid closed.
The car had become silent as the prisoners realized Hedges was attempting to find a way out. There was not now a trace of scorn on any of their faces as they peered through the near darkness towards the door. Some of them even showed a flickering of hope.
"When I lift this thing, you shove on the door," Hedges murmured to Forrest.
"I'm with you, Captain," the sergeant responded, and Hedges noted the revival of the title.
He gripped the protected blade in both hands and applied pressure. The bar was heavy, but he was working on the short end of it. He still had strength in reserve as the bar came free of its latch and stopped against the bracket.
"Shove," he rasped. Forrest nodded, inserted his fingers into the Crack and pushed. The door screeched on rusted runners, then was caught in the train's slipstream and rammed home to the limit of its travel. A great gust of fresh air and bright light filled the car. Men gulped and blinked their eyes. The fields of Georgia rushed by as a blur. Those prisoners who had been pressed against the door clung tenaciously to the men nearest them as the slipstream threatened to snatch them from the car. A babble of excited chatter rose but suddenly died down as the prisoners realized that leaping from the racketing train offered only an escape into death.
"Ain't no brake cord that I can see, Captain," Forrest pointed out acidly.
Hedges merely grunted in response, then climbed carefully to his feet, gripping the door frame as the slipstream buffeted him. When he reached up he found that he was just able to hook his fingertips over the edge of the car's flat roof. "You want to give me a boost?" he asked the sergeant, then turned his gaze towards Rhett.
"No copping a crafty feel, Bob," Forrest said as he wrapped an arm around one of Hedges' legs,
"He is rather butch," Rhett responded with an accentuated flickering of his eyelashes as he gripped the captain's other leg.
As other prisoners held the two men in position, they hoisted Hedges aloft. The slipstream plucked at Hedges clothing and stung his face as he folded his elbows onto the roof and hauled himself up, taking his weight off Forrest and Rhett.
"Okay?" a voice yelled from below.
"It's the only way to ride," he called as he stretched flat across the roof, looking first towards the front of the train, then the rear. He had seen six guards at the time he and his troopers were loaded on to the train, two coming from the camelback locomotive and four from the caboose: but the car door had been slammed before he was able to see if any changes were made. But now, as he looked across the heaped logs in the tender, he saw that one more guard had chosen or been ordered to ride with the engineer and fireman. Another glance along the swaying car roofs towards, the rear confirmed there was no immediate danger from this direction, and Hedges turned his body to it lengthwise position and began to inch forward. While the engineer concentrated upon his controls and the fireman rested from the arduous task of feeding logs into the fierce blaze, the three guards lounged in attitudes of bored disinterest, only one of them cradling, a rifle—a French Le Faucheux. He and a second uniformed figure stared ahead to where the gleaming rails began a long curve around the foot of a bluff while the third guard peered across the open country spread out to the west of the track.
Just as the clatter of the moving train had masked the sound of Hedges' exit and the prisoners' reaction, so it covered the small scraping noises of the captain's belly-sliding progress along the roof of the car. His eyes squeezed almost shut against the streaming air, Hedges reached the leading edge of the car and snatched his attention away from the footplate for a moment to survey the gap between himself and the rear of the locomotive. It was about four feet.
Willing the guards and loco crew to continue with what engaged them, Hedges raised himself to his knees and then shuffled forward, fighting the pressure of the slipstream which threatened to knock him over backwards. Black wood smoke from the great inverted cone of the locomotive's stack disintegrated in the sunlit air above him, showering him with soot that clogged his ears and nostrils and burned his eyes. In the gap he could see the ties flashing by as a blur and the clack of the wheels was suddenly louder, emphasizing the inevitable death, which awaited should he misjudge his move and drop on to the coupling, to be cannoned on to the track.
He fell forward, arms outstretched. His strong hands hooked over the rear of the tender, the impact sending a jarring pain along his arms to explode in his shoulders. He gritted his teeth, holding back a cry. His body swayed across the gap and held the position for several moments, concealed behind the heap of fuel logs. Then he pushed with his feet and pulled with his hands. His legs came clear of the car and his body folded down against the rear of the tender, his feet finding a firm hold on the coupling. The engineer sent the train roaring into the curve without slackening speed, opening a valve to emit a shrieking whistle.
Hedges paused only momentarily to regain his breath, then hoisted himself up onto the logs, peering over them towards the footplate, where all five men were now peering ahead as if anxious to see what lay around the curve. One man still cradled his six-shot revolving rifle. Hedges used the back of his hand to wipe soot from his eyes, then started down towards the front of the tender, the sharp corners of logs digging into his body.
The engineer was the first to sense danger and he whirled around, his grizzled features twisting into an expression of shock and fear. Hedges ignored him and the log he snatched up was directed towards the head of the guard with the rifle.
"Yankee!" the engineer yelled and the single word acted as a spring, whirling around the other men. The log smashed into the side of the guard's head, a corner stabbing deep into the eye and causing a spout of blood to issue forth, spraying into the face of the fireman. As the guard crumpled, his rifle fell and bounced off the footplate to the side of the track. The fireman scrubbed frantically at his face with clenched fists, trying to wipe off the blood. Hedges sprang forward, right hand streaking towards the back of his neck. While the engineer was still petrified by shock, the two guards recovered and scrabbled for their holstered revolvers. Hedges crashed into one of them, spun him around and rested the honed edge of the razor against the pulsing side of h
is throat, locking the man's arms to his sides in a single-armed bear-hug. The third guard got his revolver clear of the holster and pointed it. His face showed indecision as he realized he could see little of Hedges but a great deal of his comrade. Hedges showed his teeth in an icy grin. They shone whiter than ever against his soot-blackened face.
"Bet you can blast him before I slice him," he said, shouting to be heard above the roaring wheezing of the Camelback.
"Drop it, Orville!" the threatened guard cried in alarm.
The revolver wavered. It was a ten-shot Walch with two hammers.
"Toss it," Hedges countermanded. "Over your head."
"You haven't got a chance,'" the guard warned.
"I'm an optimist," Hedges answered. "Toss it, feller."
"Orville!" the man in Hedges' power pleaded. "Do like he says."
The fireman was still trying to wipe himself clean of blood, spitting on his hands and massaging his face. The engineer was like a wax effigy, his frozen grip keeping the throttle wide open. The unconscious guard had not moved from where he had fallen. The man with the Walch stared hate at Hedges, then suddenly hurled the heavy revolver over his shoulder.
"I ain't sure I done the right thing Wilbur," he shouted, shaking his head.
"It was okay with me," Hedges said, releasing his grip on his prisoner and snatching the Starr .44 from the man's holster. He backed away, brandishing both the gun and the razor. The four men regarded him with fear and hate. The unconscious man groaned and twitched.
"What now?" Wilbur asked.
Hedges sidestepped, hooked a foot under the stomach of the injured guard and kicked out. The man, just beginning to gain control over his limp muscles, rolled off the edge of the footplate and thudded to the side of the track with a high, thin wail. The engineer found enough of his voice to emit a gasp.
"Your buddy did it the hard way," Hedges said with a vicious sneer contorting his mouth. "You got five seconds to pick your place. One."
"We'll be killed," Orville yelled.
"Give it a try," Hedges answered. "Two. Wave your arms. Maybe you'll fly. Three."
The train was round the foot of the bluff now and hurtling straight as an arrow along the edge of a pine forest with cotton fields on the other side. Wilbur moved gingerly to the side of the footplate and snatched a fearful glance over the edge. Hedges aimed the gun steadily at Orville, who scuttled to the side of his comrade.
"Four."
"There's a river ahead!" Wilbur yelled.
"You ain't got the time," Hedges said. "Five."
Both guards snatched a fast glance towards the Union captain, saw his finger tighten around the trigger, and launched themselves off the locomotive. Wilbur died instantly, smashing open his head against a telegraph pole. Orville broke both his legs as his feet crashed into the stump of a tree, then had his skull crushed beneath the leading car wheels as he bounced back across the track. The racketing note of the train altered as the locomotive hurtled across a trestle bridge above a slow-running river.
"You could have given them that, chance," the engineer accused.
"Maybe you're right," Hedges allowed, sliding his razor back into its neck pouch. "Seems they weren't."
"Huh!"
"Didn't even try to fly. Stop the train, feller."
The engineer looked to left and right, licking the lips of his slack mouth. The fireman did, the same, then Hedges. Each saw that the countryside had taken on a look of desolation and destruction. The pine forest had given way to an expanse of trampled brush growing in a tangled mass around the dead stumps that were all that remained of hundreds of felled trees. On the other side of the track was a deserted plantation, the fields overgrown with weeds and the shacks of the Negro workers left to rot in a state of disrepair.
"Sure, Captain," the engineer answered, shooting a secretive glance at the fireman as he released the throttle and pulled hard on the brake handle.
Great billows of scalding steam hissed from valves and the wheels of the Camelback, screeched and showered sparks. Prison cars slammed into each other, straining their couplings and their tightly-packed occupants screamed in fear and bellowed in anger as the sudden braking flung them into struggling heaps of helpless humanity. Keeping the two-man crew covered, Hedges sprang forward to peer ahead.
"There's a depot!" he snapped. "Where is it?"
A triumphant smile curled up the corners of the engineer's slack mouth, but the fireman began to tremble. The engineer reached up and jerked down a cord. The high-pitched whistle screamed clearly above all the other noises of the slowing train.
"End of the line for you, Yankee," the man yelled gleefully. "Little place called Anderson. You made your play too late."
Hedges snarled and tilted the Starr. His curled trigger finger squeezed and the engineer screamed, dropping his hand from the whistle cord, blood oozing from a large hole drilled through the center of his palm. A roar of exaltation rose from a score of throats as the prisoners in the first car sprang through the open door, struggling to regain their balance as they hit the ground. The first to recover raced alongside the screeching train, leaping up to knock free the retaining bars on the doors of other cars.
The fireman saw the-murderous look n Hedges' sooted face and leapt clear of the locomotive. He hit the ground, pitched forward and endeavored to scramble to his feet. Suddenly each of his arms was held in a strong grip and he was hauled clear of the ground. He looked in terror to left and-right and saw the grinning faces of Seward and Bell.
"Don't!" he pleaded.
"Mine!" Seward shouted.
"Sure," Bell allowed and released his grip, falling back.
The fireman's legs folded beneath him and he was dragged along for two yards before Seward shoved him hard towards the train. He fell with a scream between two cars and a wheel sliced through him, cutting him cleanly in half with a sickening crunch of snapping bone.
The three guards leapt down from the caboose and went into a crouch, emptying their carbines towards the fleeing Union prisoners. Ten blue-clad figures fell, more than half of them dead, the remainder clawing at the dusty ground and screaming with the agony of their wounds. As the guards tossed aside their carbines and reached for side irons, the prisoners nearest to them turned and rushed them. One guard fired a, single shot, turning the revolver towards his own head as he saw the intent upon the faces of the attacking prisoners. The other two were toppled backwards by the onrush and did not have time to scream. Fists and boots smashed into their flesh. Fingers gouged and nails scratched. When the Union men stood up the guards were no more than pulpy masses of bleeding flesh clothed in the shreds of uniforms.
As the train at last ground to a halt, the initial exhilaration of escape left the prisoners. Many were already far across the ruined fields and denuded forest. Now those who had held back to take part in the slaughter of the guards turned and streamed away, their pace quickening as a volley of rifle fire crackled out from the direction of the Anderson depot.
"We go back," Hedges snarled at the engineer who was whimpering as he pressed his shattered hand against his side.
"You'll never make it," the man hissed between clenched teeth.
Hedges lashed out with the Starr and the engineer reeled back with a scream, pouring blood from his mouth where the sight of the revolver had opened his top gum. The rifle fire was louder. Some wild bullets clanged against the locomotive. One of them ricocheted off the smokestack and tore into the throat of the engineer. The man fell backwards off the footplate and thudded to add his lifeless body to the many that littered the side of the track. Hedges cursed and turned to survey the controls and gauges arrayed across the front of the cab.
"These iron horses ain't as easy as the four-legged kind are they, Yankee?"
Hedges whirled, leveling the Starr, then allowed the gun to slip from his grasp as he saw the muzzle of the Springfield rifle unwaveringly trained upon the center of his stomach. It was in the hands of a mounted Confederate cavalry
lieutenant who appeared anxious to use the weapon.
"Sure don't react to giddy-up," Hedges answered evenly, looking across the shoulder of his captor to where more than a hundred mounted cavalry and infantrymen were in hot pursuit of the fleeing prisoners.
"Get down here," the lieutenant ordered, backing off his horse, but keeping the rifle steady on its target. "Boy, is Captain Wirz going to enjoy having you in Andersonville."
Hedges took his time climbing down from the locomotive and the lieutenant appeared to be in no hurry. Unlike many other rebel soldiers who had overhauled the prisoners and were forcing them back towards the railroad on the run, urging them onwards with the prod of rifle muzzles in their backs.
"Why me, lieutenant?" Hedges asked, gathering some saliva in his mouth, swirling it around to soak up the soot and spitting it out.
"He don't like troublemakers," the rebel trooper answered. "He's got permanent gut aches and a Yankee near shot off his arm at Seven Pines. Both play him up worse when there's trouble. Let's go."
A jerk of the head indicated the direction. The turning of Hedges' body altered the aim of the rifle from his stomach to the center of his back. As he ambled along beside the railroad, he was joined by other prisoners, breathless and disconsolate in their failure to escape. As the group swelled, the captors fell back and wide to the sides, rifles at the ready for the first sign of trouble. A man pushed forward through the group and fell into pace beside Hedges.
"Ain't our day, is it, Captain?" Forrest said grimly.
Hedges looked around him and saw that the group of prisoners was swelling by the moment. Beyond, on both sides of the gleaming rails, were the slumped figures of those prisoners who had been killed by the rebels. If any Union men had escaped recapture or death, they were few.
"You want me to say I was wrong to try it, Sergeant?"
Hedges said, returning his gaze to the face of Forrest.
Forrest shook his head, his mouth cracking in a grin. "Men like you and me, we're only ever wrong once. And we ain't alive to have any regrets."
THE BLUE, THE GREY AND THE RED. (Edge Series Book 6) Page 9
